Pakistani actor Mahira Khan will be walking the red carpet at the 71st Cannes Film Festival later this month. The actor, who was named the first Pakistani brand ambassador for make-up giant L’Oreal last year, took to Instagram to share the news. Mahira Khan starred in Bollywood film Raees opposite Shah Rukh Khan. The film was directed by Rahul Dholakia and also starred Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Mahira shared a photograph of Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 1977 Cannes and captioned it, “Let’s do this! ???? #Cannes2018 ???Arnold Schwarzenegger at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, where he presented the documentary “Pumping Iron.”” She also took to Twitter and wrote: “My name is #Cannes and I’m not a 😉 ??” Other celebrities attending the Cannes this year to represent L’Oreal Paris are Julianne Moore, Jane Fonda, Eva Longoria as well as Bollywood stars Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai and Sonam Kapoor. Kangana Ranaut is also reported to be gearing up for her debut at Cannes this year. The 71st annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be held from May 8 to May 19. This year, the Cannes festival is mired in a little controversy with Netflix. It all began when Netflix’s films Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories were admitted in the official category. It angered many French exhibitors who protested that those films had not been shown in French theatres. Netflix refused to screen films because of the rule that says theatrically screened films have a 36 month waiting period before they begin streaming. Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, gave a statement regarding it, saying, “I think we got into a more difficult situation with the Cannes Film Festival than we meant to because, you know, we’re not trying to disrupt the movie system; we are trying to make our members happy. We make our content for them.” Published in Daily Times, May 6th 2018.